Finally, we call upon Egypt to create in earnest a special ‘Citizenship Rights Commission’, reporting to the president directly and composed of an equal number of reputed Muslims and non- Muslims.
Its mandate shall be to examine all laws, regulations, policies and practices currently in place with a view to recommend and oversee changes needed to establish complete and equal rights to all citizens.
Indeed; if the political will was there, the ‘Coptic problem’ would be solvable rather quickly and equitably.
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1 A review was done by the author on the heads of Egyptian diplomatic missions abroad (ranks of ‘ambassador’ and ‘consul general’), based on information available on the website of the Foreign Ministry: Out of 151 names listed, three are Copts and up to two others could (based on their names) be Copts as well.
Hence, their ratio would be at best a meagre 3.3%.
2 Refer to ‘A Coptic Blueprint for a Modern and Democratic Egypt’ by Nabil Malek.
3 Refer to ‘En attendant la prochaine lune’ by Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Bayard, Paris), page 201.
4 Two recent changes ought to be mentioned here: 1) the ‘delegation of the authority of the president’ to governors in issuing construction permits necessary to conduct repair in places of worship.
In practice, this has reduced the embarrassment of having the president himself sign decrees authorising the repair of a broken window (or a toilet) in a church; but still left the entire matter up to the whims of local security authorities.
2) Establishing the Coptic Christmas day as a notional holiday.
This was a good gesture, even if some people consider it as merely for pacification, while avoiding the resolution of the real issues.
5 Refer to ‘The Universality of Human Rights’, by Dr.
Selim Naguib